“As you will, omi,” Antag said, and no more than that. But Antag and his brothers were relieved, Marak was sure. They rode in among the line, and passed the word to the village of Faran as they did, a Lakhtani village out of the south, where Tain would find little sympathy—it was their goods, their caravans that Tain had raided in the war, and Tain’s son was little welcome: Antag did the talking. Marak was glad to ride out of their midst, bound forward, but it was only to another Lakhtani village, one he had no more knowledge of.

Then in their moving forward they came to a village contingent they had not addressed, one that had passed during their rest.

“What village?” Marak asked, and hearing it was Tarsa, asked after the lord, having no idea who it was.

The lord of Tarsa turned out to be an old, old man, Agi, wrapped in the wind and the dust and the night, and drowsing as he rode.

“Omi,” Marak said to him, drawing near, and told him the matter of Tain and a rebellion within the caravan, not knowing where Agi might fall on the matter of Tain’s war, and the abjori. He was a voice in the dark. So was Agi.

“We’ll keep an eye to it,” Agi said as they rode.

“Have you heard where Kais Tain might be?” Antag asked. They had asked that of every village.

“I’ve no idea. Forward or back of us, it’s all the same to me. This is a fool’s errand, this moving to another tower. Stupidity. You’re Marak, are you? Tain’s son? Tain Trin Tain?”

“The same.”

“Fool. Fool to bring us away from Oburan.”

“Oburan’s dead,” Marak said doggedly. “There’s no other place, no other destination for caravans after this. I’ve been to the tower. I know it’s there. I know what’s there.”

“You’re the prophet.”

“I’m the Ila’s man. With Hati an’i Keran.” He added, fully cognizant that there might be feuds: “With a woman named Norit.”

He could make out only that the elder turned his head to stare at him. The veils, the sand, the night, made their emotions invisible to each other. It was impossible to placate this man with a gesture. There was only this one chance to talk to him; and he knew Norit had not been a widow: she was a married woman, and by the law, yes, they were adulterers.

“Norit din Karda is dead. Her mother is dead. Her father is dead. Her aunts are all dead. And she’s dead.”

“To the life she had in Tarsa, yes. She is.”

The old man made no reply.

“Is Lelie dead?”

Still there was no reply.

“She named that name to us,” Marak said. “Is it a sister? A mother? A daughter?”

The old man was still a while answering. But Marak waited.

“The girl’s with her father,” the old man said. “As she should be.”

“A daughter, then.”

“Yes.”